This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive compensation. I do not recommend products that I do not personally believe are beneficial to you my readers. For more information, please see my disclosure page. Thank you in advance.

We will be talking about Shop Announcements, Messages to Buyers, and Shop Policies.

These can be found by clicking on the shop manager icon at the top of the screen. Then click settings on the left of the manager and pick Info and Appereances.

The Shop Announcement is the banner directly under your cover photo. This is a great place to include your turn around time and any other important information that may apply to your product. For example, I sell embroidered shirts, included in mine I have my fabric, font, thread color options as well as a link to sizing charts.

This is also a great place to include your newsletter link.

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Up next is the message to buyers. This is sent out in the emailed receipt once a customer makes a purchase.

There are two boxes for this the first option is for if you sell a physical product, the second would be for if you sell a digital download.

For the message to the buyer, I recommend including your turn around, this can be missed by the customer prior to purchase. And since most products on Etsy are made to order, the turnaround is very important.

Also, if you are personalizing your products, I also recommend asking the buyer to ensure their order is correct and to email you with any problems.

Other things that could be included would be a link to your newsletter, coupon for return customers or links to your social media or blog.

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And last but not least, Shop Policies. This is one of the most important things to make sure that you have filled out.

Etsy has a great post on shop policies. They go in depth of what you can include in your shop policies.

The options include for policies on Shipping, Payment Options,

Returns & Exchanges, Privacy Policy, and FAQ.

With shipping policies, you will need to let your customer when they can expect their item to ship. This is very important, customers need to know that they will receive their product in time if needed for an event.

Payment options, what forms of payment will you accept? The Direct Checkout allows for Credit Cards, Debit/Bank cards, Etsy Gift Cards, Apple Pay, and integrated PayPal. You can also accept Payments by mail either by check or money order.

Returns and Exchanges, this is very important as well, you will need to choose if you accept returns and/or exchanges. With most custom items, it is hard to accept an exchange. I do really recommend standing behind your product, if there is something wrong with the item, I would replace it at your cost. However, if a customer has just changed their mind on a custom item, having your return and exchange policies in place will save you some heartache.

Privacy Policy, this is to let buyers now how you will use their information.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), this is a new feature and is amazing! If you have questions that you get asked a lot, you can add these here. They have preset questions or you can write in your own.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive compensation. I do not recommend products that I do not personally believe are beneficial to you my readers. For more information, please see my disclosure page. Thank you in advance.

(If you haven’t already done so, please go back to Part 1, I will wait 🙂 )

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An important part of your business/shop is branding. You want to have a cohesive brand that is recognizable to your customers.

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You will need a Profile Picture, for your shop.

A lot of shops use a portrait of themselves for their profile picture. I recommend a good close up, you will want a well lit, preferably natural light picture. If you have extra money to have a professional take your picture that is great or you can use this guide.

You can also use your shop icon, which we will discuss next.

The suggested size for the Profile picture is 400 x 400 pixels.

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Your shop will need a Shop Icon.

Etsy has numerous people who sell branding packages. If you have it in your budget it would be worth it to look into a package.

If you do not, you can make one yourself!

I recommend taking the time to pick a color scheme for your shop. I recommend trying out this color scheme generator, it’s free and easy to use. You can lock in colors that you want and it will randomly select colors to go with it.

I also suggest picking out a font or two to use throughout your brand. For Etsy, these will only be used on your pictures/logos/cover photo/etc. But it will help to make your brand cohesive.

I recommend using PicMonkey to make your Shop Icon.
You can choose to create your own design, you will want to set the size for the shop icon for 500 x 500 pixels.They have many different options for overlays, fonts, and colors.

In general, less is more in making your design.

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Up next is your Shop Banner or Cover Photo.

These both take up the upper part of your main shop page. The Shop Banner is smaller at 760 x 100 pixels and the Cover Photo suggested size is 3360 x 840.

I recommend using this to include your shop’s name and a tagline if you have one.

You will want to use the same color scheme and fonts that you chose for your Shop Icon.

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Last, but not least, is your product photos.

These are the most important pictures of them all. You need to have great product pictures for people to want to purchase your items.

For the pictures, I recommend taking the pictures during the day. Find the brightest part of your house, near windows, if possible. Find a background that you like and take several pictures at different angles of your products. Try to avoid over cluttering your picture and focus just on the product.

You will want close ups if you have an item that size needs to be shown make sure to include something for scale. Your customers can’t hold, touch, or see the item first hand, they need these pictures to know what they are purchasing.

After you have your pictures head over to PicMonkey. You will want to crop these pictures to an 800-1000 pixel square.

I do recommend adjusting the exposure. Don’t overdue the settings, just correct the image to show the product in the correct color and light.

It is also a great idea to add a watermark. You can create your watermark in PicMonkey as well. I will do a post on how to make the watermark, stay tuned!

Once, you have your watermark, you will need to go to to the overlay tab and select your watermark and then save!